Getting farmers on community marketplace seen as having high potential

The tech start-up is designed as a farm-community marketplace where you can buy and sell fruits, vegetables, processed food items, farm tools, and fertilisers.
“I started this mission with friends while studying at university,” Thanyathorn said. “We want to build an online market for farm produce as well as a platform to give farmers more information and knowledge about production, marketing and other aspects of agriculture.
“As university students, we went upcountry many times as volunteers and found that many Thai farmers need to have more opportunities to sell their crops because this is still a major issue.
“For example, a bunch of Nam Wa bananas sells for as little as Bt3 at the farm, but you pay at least Bt20 at a retail outlet. The price difference is many times.
“So we want to help farmers get more profit from their work. Our solution is to encourage them to post their items on Getkaset.com, where they will meet potential buyers at no cost any time and anywhere.
“Using mobile phones, they can do the posting on our site by themselves. The process is simple and free of charge. Now, there are nearly 2,000 items on the site complete with pictures and the asking prices.
“Most transactions are still completed offline but we plan to offer online transaction and e-payment features soon to make the marketplace more convenient to users.
“For example, if you search for bananas or coconuts, there will be plenty of results for your consideration plus contact numbers and details on the produce and their farms.
“We also feature organic produce such as mango, which sells at a better price.
“At this stage, the number of unique visitors is around 300,000-400,000 after we started the site more than one year ago.

Change in mindset
“We’ve also worked with the |Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives (BAAC) to provide knowledge about markets and other matters to farmers in addition to being the marketplace platform.
“Our team and volunteers have also reached out to farmers to help them change their mindset so that they can turn to us to sell their produce.
“In fact, the potential demand for an online farm marketplace is huge, so we hope to boost the traffic to a more substantial level. Most farmers are also happy that we have helped them develop other skills via training sessions in cooperation with other agencies.
“Getkaset started out with financial support from the Tao-kae Noi scheme organised by Samart Group and the National Scienceand Technology Development Agency.
“Our team also went to Taiwan to observe the development of tech start-ups. You need the right mindset and must be persistent to be successful.”
According to Thanyathorn, Getkaset.com earlier got buy-out offers from investors but the founders decided to continue their business and wanted to develop the site into a more solid platform before making further moves.
At this stage, most Thai farmers are still new to the digital technology that has the potential to disrupt production, marketing and other farm methods.
With a sizeable agricultural sector, the country also has a big potential to gain competitive advantages from digital technology in boosting productivity, creating new marketing channels and adopting new transaction methods.